Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) Tapping for Pediatric Emergency Department Staff During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evaluation of a Pilot Intervention

Objective: Emergency-department (ED) staff may experience psychologic distress due to the stressful nature of their work. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this distress. Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) tapping, a somatic psychophysiologic intervention combining vibratory acupressure with elements of cognitive–behavioral and exposure therapies, can reduce psychologic distress. This study tested the short-term effect of 10-minute EFT tapping on the psychologic distress of pediatric ED staff responding to COVID-19.

Materials and Methods: During the COVID-19 pandemic, diverse staff in the pediatric ED of a New York City teaching hospital participated in this single-group study. A licensed creative arts therapist led participants in 10-minute EFT tapping sessions. A self-report questionnaire with 7 items based on the Trauma Exposure Response framework was administered immediately pre- and postintervention. Standardized mean differences between both timepoints were calculated.

Results: There were statistically significant reductions for 6 of the 7 items studied, including stress (3.32–2.14), obsessive and intrusive thoughts (2.50–1.85), feelings of pressure (3.20–2.17), loneliness (1.84–1.44), and emotional and physical pain (2.28–1.70); all P < 0.001. No significant changes in professional satisfaction were reported following the intervention.

Conclusions: Despite the limitations of a single-arm study design, a 10-minute brief EFT tapping session was a promising way to reduce short-term psychologic distress in pediatric ED health care workers. Future studies, including rigorous randomized controlled trials, are needed to evaluate the effectiveness of brief EFT tapping interventions in other settings.